Category Archives: 2014

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As I was recently rooting around in my loft for something, I found my big macpac, and realised I’ve had it for 10 years this year. It’s the best rucksack I’ve ever bought, it has a lifetime guarantee, and it’s EXTREMELY well-made, so I thought it was worthy of a little shout-out.

I bought my matching big and little macpacs in 2007, before going to Nepal for a year.

Other than an unfortunate incident once where my Big Mac got ripped in an airport and needed to be patched (I sent it off to macpac and they fixed it up and shipped it back to me), it has held up remarkably well! In Nepal I used to keep it empty under my bed, but padlocked as my passport was in there, and when I lost the key, I had to beg the locksmith to cut through the padlock carefully not to damage the zip!

It’s incredibly comfortable, exactly the right size, and I love that it unzips like a proper suitcase instead of rooting around in a normal rucksack. I also love that you can fold in and zip up the straps when checking it in at airports so they don’t get damaged en-route.

My little macpac has gone with me EVERYWHERE in the last 10 years. It’s literally my everyday bag, it carries my laptop into work everyday, it goes with me on mini-breaks and weekends, and in addition to all of the countries my big mac has been to it has ALSO been with me to Qatar, Madrid, Italy and Switzerland!

Obviously daily use for 10 years has left my little mac a bit grubby, but considering what it’s been through, it’s holding up INCREDIBLY well! It’s even still mostly waterproof, as I learned after a can of tonic water exploded inside it once in the Philippines…

This little bag goes with me pretty much everywhere, is still sturdy and comfy after 10 years, and it zips onto the front of Big Mac (although I hardly ever do that).

So, all in all, as a fairly frequent traveller, I give these bags 10 out of 10 and highly recommend them for your travelling adventures.

One thing you learn to accept as an aid worker is that you are never going to have a small, or especially environmentally-friendly carbon footprint. There are just too many flights involved! Not only do I travel to far-flung and exotic places for work, and then generally want to take holidays around the general area of wherever you happen to be, but I also have family in the UK and Australia that I try to visit once in a while, and a lot of friends having fabulous destination weddings at the moment in places like Canada and France! I think 2015 might turn out to be a record-breaking year for me in terms of flights and travel, as I look back at everywhere I have been this year, and am simultaneously busy planning both work trips and holidays for the coming months. I’ve decided to map it out compared to last year, which was also quite travel-heavy….

2014: I can’t remember how many internal flights I did in the Philippines, but if I had to guess I’d say

Shall I fill you in on some of the security context here as well? Bear in mind that my general knowledge of global political and foreign affairs is extremely limited, so I’ll have to give you the dummies guide to the context here, as understood my me…. (Disclaimer – I can’t be held responsible if this turns out to be hopelessly simplistic or just plain wrong).

I’m now here in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). A lot of people just call it Kurdistan, but you have to be a bit careful with that, as “Kurdistan” is often used to refer to the entire Kurdish region, which encompasses parts of southern Turkey, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq and parts of Iran, so that could be confusing. For now I’ll just call it KRI. Technically I think it is still part of Iraq, but in reality it’s more of a semi-autonomous region (or something to that effect).

(And on a side note, I also have to be careful how I refer to ISIS. I was informed that it’s ok to say ISIS, ISIL or Da’esh, but I should avoid referring to them as the Islamic State, because that might add a legitimacy to them that could inadvertently put me on the wrong side!) Continue reading →

Well now, so much has gone on since I got here it feels impossible to give you an overview, so I will have to split it all up into random chunks. Firstly, I’ll give you a quick recap of my first few weeks in Kurdistan.

I arrived here in a flurry of activity, and spent two weeks working crazy hours down in the south – we barely had time to stop and eat once a day, and after two weeks we were all a bit frazzled and exhausted, and feeling under pressure! I was supposed to organise the distribution of 1000 “winterisation” kits (blankets, mattresses, heater, kerosene, jerry cans, plastic sheeting etc), but when I got here nothing had really been done (no suppliers identified, no list of beneficiaries, no idea where we’d be distributing etc).

We were under some serious pressure to deliver, but in the end the supplier couldn’t deliver the goods until just before Christmas and the decision was made to postpone the whole distribution to January as we wouldn’t have enough staff left to manage it. Continue reading →

Lovely twisty trees! The biggest mosque in Erbil… …complete with disco lights…. Sunrise over Erbil The old Citadel A very old mosque (approx 300 years old or so I think) Close up views of the Citadel The bazaar… “Things for … Continue reading →

Flying into Kurdistan, some pretty spectacular views of the mountains Driving across Kurdistan, I took way too many blurry pictures of the incredible views from the car window.. For some … Continue reading →

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur, but I’m now here in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. However, to backtrack slightly, (cos I like to keep things in chronological order….) here’s a little bit about my security training course before I left the UK.

I spent 4 days in a scout camp deep in the midlands on a Security training course, learning a lot about traumatic first aid in the field (how to cope with traumatic amputations and gunshot wounds in a place with no hospital or ambulance nearby). There were a lot of gory pictures and practice bandaging people with very lifelike wounds!

All very practical and useful.

It was freezing cold, so I had to nip to Asda to buy a new hat, gloves and an extra jumper for the outdoorsy bits, Here’s me wrapped up in a tons of layers ready for the day!

Well after all the excitement of leaving parties and lovely presents, in which I got given an amazing model fishing boat which is now my pride and joy, AND an umbrella hat which is the most awesome thing ever, I have now left the Philippines, and am at home, back in the UK.

The flight was fine, and I even had enough space to spread out and lie down across the empty seats. The excess baggage was expensive but in the end I only had 29 kilos, which frankly after being in the Philippines for 1 year, was not too shabby at all really!

Since being back home in the UK, I’ve had a lovely time hanging out with my mum, sister, and niblings, getting lots of cuddles, trips to the spa, arranging to see friends and other such lovely things. Continue reading →